Last week in our class Oulu (4a)

It was still dark when we came to school. After school it was dim in spite of the fact that it was about at 2 pm. At this time there is day light only a short moment at mid day. But the light is not bright but greyish blue! Luckily we`ve got the snow and it gives the light. You can imagine how we enjoy the breaks at school because of the games and plays with snow. But it wasn`t so funny to notice that “someone” had made our mittens, shoes and woolly hats totally wet during the lessons in the corridor!
We had a test about natural science on Thursday. On the same day we also could practice how to contribute on the affairs at school. We were asked to think of the means and ideas to make our school, our immediate neighborhood, Finland , Europe or even the whole world a better place for everyone. Each pupil worked alone first and made four suggestions. After that we made pairs and chose again only four ideas. The next step was to work in groups of four, then in groups of eight pupils and finally we chose four (4) topics by voting with the whole class. Our class found the most important affair and aim to make better: all the wars in the world must be finished. We were also worried about the animals, climate changes (the global warming) and our “own” lake, Kuivasjärvi, which is near by the school. This lake should get cleaner.
Our class representative delivers these suggestions to the pupil association in our school. Later, next February, all the suggestions from our school will be delivered and discussed in a big “city meeting” with communal officials and town councilors. We can hopefully influence on big decisions! Anyway we have been able to tell our wishes! All this belongs to the project which encourages children and teen-agers to contribute and implicate on affairs which concern just them. All this gave us a good possibility to get wonderful topics also to our Comenius-project: The world we would like to have!
We also had a Christmas party in our class on Thursday. We decorated the ginger bread, made Christmas cards and Christmas balls. And of course we ate many kinds of goodies.
On Friday morning assembly we started the Advent time by singing “Hoosianna” (Hosanna) with all the pupils and teachers. You can listen to the melody and look at one www-Advent calendar by searching
http://joulukalenteri.positiivarit.fi
We started to make our own Advent calendar already on Tuesday in our class. There are 19 pupils and we wanted to start making an interesting serial story. Each pupil writes his or her own part during one day. So when it`s time to start the Christmas holiday our story will be ready and at the same time our calendar is ready!
Greetings!
Vuokko and Raija (transl. )